Tag: mind-hacks

I hate just standing around doing nothing, even when it feels good. To combat this, over the years I have come up with a slew of options for making my shower time productive. Some are fairly simple, others may seem a bit odd to most normal folk out there. But what is “normal” really?

1. Calf Raises

The calves are oft-overlooked muscles when it comes to many workout regimens. But what they lack in glamour they make up for in utility; calves are important for ankle stabilization, generating power for many lifts, and even adding some inches on your vertical jump.

What better time to exercise them than when you’re just standing around doing nothing?

Standing calf-raises are quite simple: stand on one foot, clench all the muscles in your supporting leg to provide proper stability, and start lifting up onto the ball of your foot in a controlled motion. If you really want to work on your ankle stability you can do these without holding onto the wall, but be careful—falling down in the shower rarely ends well (I of course have absolutely no reason to know this from experience).

2. Stretching

There is never enough time in the day to do all the stretching that I’d like to, so this ends up being by far my most common shower activity.

I typically only have time for the standing pike—bend forward, hinging at the hips, and try to touch the ground a few inches in front of your toes while keeping your back flat. I hold the position for 60 seconds, then sometimes throw in a bit of isometric stretching.

If anyone is interested in starting a proper stretching program, here is a great place to begin (at some point I may write about everything that I am currently doing).

3. Meditate

And now we get to the mental side of things.

“But wait!” you say. “My showers are already meditation! I get all relaxed and my mind just floats!”

That is opposite of meditation (of the mindfulness variety at least—I won’t speak for every variation).

The essence of meditation is the process of eliminating all thoughts of the future or past and just existing in the present, reveling in the simple sensations of the body. For most people, the shower is their time to either daydream or just to think.

Oh, and yes I do typically sit down when I meditate. Even in the shower. I find that it makes it easier to focus.

4. Visualizations

I usually reserve these for morning showers.

Research shows that focused visualizations can have a profound effect on your mind and body. This works even to the point of building muscle mass via simply going through a detailed workout in your mind. If this sounds absurd, try going through this 2-minute exercise:

This same principle can be applied to almost any aspect of life. When I want to have a really successful day, if I spend several minutes envisioning in detail what that would entail, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

5. Power Pose

For those of you who are too lazy for the above four activities, here’s something nice and simple that takes only 2 minutes and might boost your testosterone by up to 20%: stand like Superman.

Multiple studies have shown this to both increase testosterone and reduce cortisol (your primary stress hormone).

This can be combined with the visualizations for an even greater effect.

BONUS: Cold Showers

For those of you who were already thinking “Man, this guy’s showers seem like a lot of work. I just want to relax and enjoy myself!” this is probably the point where you completely abandon ship.

It’s been months since I’ve taken a hot shower.

I can go on at length about all the different forms of therapeutic cold exposure and their benefits, but to give a brief sampling, cold showers have been shown to:

Increase alertness

Refine hair and skin

Improve immunity and circulation

Stimulate weight loss

Speed up muscle soreness and recovery

Ease stress

Relieve depression

Boost testosterone

To work up to it, try taking a hot shower and then just ending it off with 30 seconds of cold. The colder the better.

Closing Oddities

I almost always use some combination of the above activities in my showers. When I don’t, I have been known to read books, hold long phone conversations, and even do handstands. I really do hate just standing around.

Pro tip: don’t do handstands in the shower.

Does anyone have any interesting ways they make use of their shower time?

Change your self-talk from first to second/third person. No, “I can do this. What they think about me doesn’t affect me.” Instead make it “Avisha can do this. What they think about Avisha doesn’t affect him.”

Research shows that making this change will significantly reduce anxiety and boost performance, particularly in social contexts.

Of course if you use Avisha’s name then the benefits for all those non-Avishas out there have yet to be proven. But feel free to give it a shot and let Avisha know how it goes.

It works for LeBron.

More Psych-Babble Please

The primary mechanism in play here is something called “self-distancing.” We tend to go through our lives extremely self-focused, constantly interpreting everything that happens through the lens of how it could affect us or be because of us. And because we are so self-focused, we instinctively assume that everyone else is focused on us as well.

Imagine that you are about to go out to a party when you realize that you have a distinctive pimple on your cheek. You try to cover it up, and your friends tell you that it’s barely noticeable, but still you end up going through the entire evening just knowing that every person in the room is covertly staring at you and it.

Now imagine that your friend had the pimple, and you were the one telling her that it was barely noticeable. Even if you were lying a little bit to make her feel better, I bet that you would very quickly forget about it and barely even recognize it when interacting with her throughout the evening.

If only you could view yourself not as yourself but as your own friend.

Researchers at the University of Michigan recently published a meta-analysis of 6 other studies on self-talk. Participants in these studies were subjected to social-anxiety-inducing situations and given clear instructions on how to mentally prepare themselves, either with first or 2nd/3rd person references. These situations included meeting someone for the first time and being told they have to make a good impression as well as being instructed to give a public speech with only five minutes of prep-time. Researchers measured performance through a combination of proven emotional surveying techniques and careful live analysis by judges.

Across the board, participants in the non-first-person groups demonstrated lower levels of anxiety before, during, and after the activity. They also were more likely to view the upcoming activity as a challenge rather than as a threat and less likely to spend much time dwelling upon their performance after the fact. Finally, and possibly most relevantly, they actually performed noticeably better on the activity itself.

It may sound a bit silly, especially if you are the type to actually verbalize your self talk, but I highly recommend giving it a try. Avisha knows he will.